Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
So you want to know who I am and something about me? OK, you asked for it: buckle up and settle in for the ride. I wonder how many of you will make it all the way through to the end…. Well, here we go:
I am an insanely lucky person. Others would say I have been overly blessed. But for whatever reason, I have been able to do whatever I wished for most of my life, and Fate has consistently smiled on my efforts.
I have been a beekeeper, harvested my own honey, and even made awesome beeswax candles. [Bees are the most amazing, fascinating creatures on earth — for instance, did you know that a bee will travel as far as two miles through country or city searching for a good food source, and then when he finds one, he comes all the way back to the hive and does a little DANCE for the rest of the bees, and that tells them exactly where his bush or tree can be found! ?? WTF??? If that doesn’t blow your mind, nothing will.]
I have been a chef in a five-star French restaurant in a five-star luxury hotel. [I lied through my teeth on the job application and the rest of my job interview consisted of making something for the head chef to eat. My mother was Parisienne, and she taught me how to make crepes suzettes. That was my entire cooking knowledge. So I made a crepe for the chef (who was himself from Paris) and he loved it so much he hired me on the spot — he almost wept with joy when he ate it. It wasn’t long, however, before I made him regret his hasty hiring decision.]
In College I was elected to be Editor of the campus newspaper, and I overturned the applecart by transforming the newspaper into a magazine for the year I ran it. I was lucky to assemble a handpicked team of just four exceptionally-talented students, and we produced the most outrageous, ire-and-admiration-inspiring gonzo journalism that became the prime subject of discussion on campus as soon as each new issue hit the street. No cow was too sacred to be barbecued, no department or institution above our critical assessment. It’s been a looooong time since I was there, and they STILL talk about that year.
I have tutored French, Latin and English to ridiculously rich, spoiled high school students. [I was a destitute college student living hand-to-mouth riding my bicycle to their parents’ mansions to give them their lessons, and they were getting Porsches and Mercedes sports cars for their 16th birthdays. I got even though — I gave them extra homework. Ha!]
I was the only anglophone member of a French-language newspaper [remember newspapers?] in Toronto, and eventually I became its Editor.
When I was fifteen I snuck on a train in Toronto and rode it to Chicago, then snuck on another and rode it to San Diego, where I attended one of the first iterations of the annual San Diego Comic Book Convention, held at the small El Cortez Hotel. In those days it was a small, intimate gathering where anyone could sit down and chat with the creators of the great films, books and comics. Nowadays it’s a huge affair that draws tens of thousands of people who might get lucky and spot a celebrity on a stage 500 meters away in a gigantic convention hall. I count my attendance lo those many decades ago as nothing less than a gift from God.
All through the eighties and nineties I tried repeatedly to get on Jeopardy! but could never score high enough on their initial application test. That’s my fault though — if I’d just kept up my subscription to People Magazine, maybe I could have done better on the pop culture questions. Forget about keeping up with the Kardashians — I can’t even keep up with Simon Cowell.
I once lived in an atelier in Paris on the Ile de la Cite, right in the smack-dab center of Paris in the 1er Arrondissement. By day I was an simultaneous translator working at the Musee Georges Pompideau [known locally as the Beaubourg], by night I was a poser in the local wine bars trying to pretend I actually knew what I was drinking. I don’t think I fooled anyone.
I was once the Editor of a haute-couture and fashion magazine and spent a year eating nothing but foie gras and canapes, going to some kind of fashion event almost every night of the week. To this day I can’t bear to even look at pate.
I have worked for the U.S. Census, and I worked for a year as a full-time unpaid volunteer at a shelter for homeless inner-city youth.
I have taught water skiing, and I myself enjoy barefoot water skiing, snowboarding, and scuba diving.
I have worked in every aspect of newspaper and magazine production. I have been photographer, typesetter, page designer, photo retoucher, writer, editor, publisher.
I was chosen by the American Red Cross to receive their Hero’s Award for the charity work I did assisting victims of Hurricane Katrina. I ran a fundraiser that raised just north of $300,000 to fund recovery efforts for that disaster. That got me commendations from the US Senate and the US Congress. [Not too shabby for a simple Canadian, eh? Wink wink.]
My spouse and I used to own a horse ranch in California and one of our mares, “Princess in Diamonds”, became one of the best-producing mares in reining history. She’s in the NRHA Hall of Fame, now. Her offspring have earned well over one million dollars. [I should be so lucky. Did you hear the one about the horse breeder who wins a million dollars in the lottery and his friends ask him what he’s going to do with his windfall, and he says, “Oh, just keep breeding horses until it’s all used up.” You laugh, but it’s true.]
In California I wrote, designed and produced a weekly newsletter for the Rotary Club that won me an award for excellence. I am still a proud Rotarian to this day.
I love long-distance bicycling. I have bicycled halfway across Canada, up the coast of Australia, and through Europe and the French Riviera. The only place I got hit by a car was in Barbados. They have a nice hospital there.
I love watching baseball. In the eighties in Toronto I attended about 40 baseball games a year, first in a frigid, torturous open-air freezer stadium on the shore of Lake Ontario, and then later in the spacious, luxurious open-or-closed-roof SkyDome. Every single ticket I ever bought, I bought from scalpers. I caught a ball at the World Series in Toronto while watching my long-suffering Blue Jays win the title for the second year in a row.
My spouse and I took a round-the-world trip for our honeymoon. [Word to the wise: a three-month honeymoon will let you know in short order if you’ve made the right marriage decision.] I was arrested by the Red Army in China for videotaping in an ancient emperor’s tomb, and my better half and I rollerbladed on the Great Wall and through the grounds of the Emperor’s Palace in Tokyo. [If you’re going to try that, make sure you can skate faster than the Palace guards can run.]
I have dived the Great Barrier Reef and I weep when I read about what climate change is doing to it. Truly one of the Modern World’s Seven Wonders and it’s disappearing before our eyes.
My spouse and I spent most of our leisure time in the 90’s in Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. [You can do that sort of thing before you have children.] As far as I’m concerned, if you’re not staying at Caesar’s Palace, you’re not really in Vegas. We love Caesar’s. And Caesar’s liked us back enough to invite us to see Frank Sinatra in one of his final performances, in a small, intimate theatre, with Don Rickles opening for him. I still have bruises on my arm from all the pinches I kept giving myself to prove I wasn’t dreaming.
Caesar’s is also responsible for the second-greatest concert we saw, which was Sheryl Crow performing in a small invitation-only gig. Say what you will about casinos — they may run people into financial ruin, shatter lives and destroy marriages, but they sure put on some wicked great entertainment, eh?
I have performed as a stand-up comedian and once won a comedy competition in a festival in Toronto. [The first prize was an AC/DC keychain. I still have it somewhere.]
My kids and I are avid Disney Cruise devotees, and have taken enough cruises to have risen to the “Gold Castaways” level. Every one of the Disney ships has a luxurious adults-only section and someday my children will allow me to spend a few moments in it. Maybe.
I have owned and operated several different companies in very different industries. I used to own a Screenprinting and Embroidery company in a little California college town, and I used to teach telemarketers how to sell on the phone. [Before you start cursing at me for that, let me remind you how much nicer it was when you could tell a real live person to drop dead and stop calling you, instead of just settling for angrily hanging-up on an automated robocall.]
WOW! I can’t believe you’ve read this far! You REALLY need a hobby.
Well, that sums up a lot of who I am — you can see a lot of water has passed under my personal bridge, and I’ve dipped my toe into just about everything I could.
But what I have always done, wherever I was, or however else I was making money, was write. I have been a writer since my age was only single digits. In college, one of my professors phoned me once and asked if I had actually written my essay myself, because if I had, he wanted to get it published. I think that was when I knew there might be something to this writing business, after all.
My first book was published when I was twenty-one years old, but I stopped writing books for a living when I found other ways of making much more money so I could give my kids a better life.
But now that my kids are grown and my life belongs me again, I’m writing full-time.
My most recent three books have been especially well-received, and two of my characters, Kat and Jerry, are garnering requests from readers for more more more. So I guess Kat and Jerry will be my new constant companions, at least for the foreseeable future.
I hope you’ll join me for the ride — it should be a blast!
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My most recent published work is “They Left Me For DEAD”, a hardboiled noir crime novel.
I want to say it’s written in the style of the great Masters, like Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, and Dashiell Hammett, but I think artists who compare themselves or their works to other artists are tedious and pretentious. I mean, do you think Mozart ever said something like, “Well, my music’s a lot like Bach’s or Haydn’s, but punchier, you know?”
I will admit my noir crime novel was inspired by the great noir tomes of the last century, but not by any one of them in particular. I just wanted to write a story that takes place in Texas, and a gritty, dark, murder and crime book seemed perfect for that surrounding. Apparently, the readers agree, if the feedback I’ve received is to be believed.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I have a playlist of about 500 songs that are almost exclusively jazz, such as Johnny Hodges (Duke Ellington’s famous saxophonist), Miles Davis, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, etc, and I mix in a few dozen great opera arias (I’m a huge Cecilia Bartoli fan). Once I start writing I just leave the playlist going on a continuous cycle, over and over and over, until the book is done. The only ears beside mine that are exposed to this music belong to my seven cats, and so far they haven’t complained. Anyone else would probably lose their mind the fortieth or fiftieth time the songs came around again.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
I grew up reading Graham Greene, P. G. Wodehouse, James Thurber, Somerset Maugham, Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. I remember one summer I caught a particularly bad case of mononucleosis and the doctor said I had to relax — no work of any kind — for the entire summer. I read every Shadow pulp novel and every Doc Savage book ever published. I watched old movies playing in the middle of the night on TV, and became best friends with Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Myrna Loy and Rita Hayworth. I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but I think that may have had a wee bit of influence on me.
What are you working on now?
I’m actually working on two books right now.
I’m putting the finishing touches to a new Kat & Jerry science fiction book called “Falling From Space”, and working with my insanely-talented illustrator, Francesco La Cerva.
But I’m also about a quarter of the way through a new hardboiled noir crime novel, called “Beautiful, Naked, Rich… And DEAD”. My last noir crime novel, “They Left Me For DEAD” was so well received I’m enthusiastic about completing this next one.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
This may sound like I’m either stupid or just plain nuts, but I never actually thought about promoting myself or my books. I wanted only to write them. So, as of this writing, I have no personal website, no email list of fans, and I’m completely clueless about sites that are supposed to promote books.
Give me a year or two and I’ll catch up. Right now I’m keeping busy enough as it is with just the writing.
I will say this, though: If anyone reading this wants to be one of the first readers on my nascent fanbase email list, I’d be happy to add their name. They should email me at literatiinternationalmedia@gmail.com
Maybe someday I’ll have prizes or special offers for the first fifty readers who ever reached out to me. You know — when I have thousands of followers all clamouring for any crumbs which might fall from my literary table.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Make sure you don’t need your books’ income to pay the rent. I know that hardship can be a great motivator, but in this day and age, with approximately 1.8 million new books appearing on Amazon every year, the bar for financial success is set pretty high.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Walt Disney: The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.
What are you reading now?
I just finished reading a PG Wodehouse novel, “The Code of the Woosters”.
I’ve actually read it before, but Wodehouse is one of those rare writers who bears rereading. I laughed just as hard this time through as I did the first time. Maybe even harder.
I do like to read new science fiction when I can find something that’s really good, but I’m insanely picky. I enjoyed “Ready Player One” and “The Martian”, but books like that are pretty few and far between. Jack Vance is still one of my favourites, though. I can waste a lot of time reading books like “Rhialto the Marvellous”. And don’t even get me started with Roger Zelazny — he sure knew how to meld noir with scifi. I weep to think we’ll never see another new book from those guys. The scifi readers of the 50’s and 60’s never knew how lucky they were.
What’s next for you as a writer?
More books.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
I would cheat.
I would take the collected works of William Shakespeare because he’s always entertaining to read, mostly because of the way he used the language. His wordplay is so clever. His plots aren’t half-bad, either.
I would take the collected works of Dostoyevsky, because you could spend years reading that stuff. He wrote a lot. Plus, it would probably be hot on a desert island, and I remember that when I first read, “A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” it was a screamingly hot summer day and I was COLD. He’s that good a writer. (The story takes place in a Soviet Gulag prison camp in Siberia.)
I would take the collected works of Hunter S. Thompson. His book, “The Great Shark Hunt” might do just by itself — it’s a collection of some of his absolute best writing, from his Golden Age of Gonzo Writing. The best modern American writer, in my opinion.
And finally, I would take a collection of the greatest American noir writing, but only if it included all of Raymond Chandler’s work. That man never wrote a bad line, as far as I’m concerned. In fact, I’ve changed my mind: forget what I said about being a pretentious poser — you can compare me to Raymond Chandler any time you want, and I’ll be just fine with it.
Author Websites and Profiles
J.M. Holmes Amazon Profile